In July this year, after the demonstration at Jantar Mantar demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in the NEET exam paper leak case, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had communicated with Gen Z through Instagram.
After this, the English newspaper 'Indian Express' published an investigative report in the month of September related to alleged irregularities in the process related to Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter list in India.
The report said that during the SIR campaign, the election commissioners were not informed about many decisions and both the election commissioners, Sukhbir Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had repeatedly raised objections to these decisions.
Opposition parties are alleging that through this process, names of 13 crore voters were removed from the list. BJP has got electoral benefit from this and because of this it has been successful in winning elections in many states.
After this report, the Cockroach Janata Party formed this year and the opposition parties started loudly demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Leaders and supporters of many opposition parties including Congress started the demonstration at Jantar Mantar in Delhi demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. During these demonstrations, there was a fierce clash between Delhi Police, paramilitary forces and protesters.
During these protests that have been going on for the last several days, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, Cockroach Janata Party leader Abhijit Deepke, AISA President and Neha Bora, one of the prominent faces of the movement, were detained.
Along with this, a large number of youth who took part in the protest were detained. Many journalists who came to cover the movement were also detained.
These demonstrations in Delhi attracted the attention of media around the world and many international newspapers considered it the biggest political challenge of PM Narendra Modi so far.
The Nendra Modi government has maintained silence on this entire incident. Many lawyers in Delhi have alleged that during the protests on Saturday and Sunday, the police arbitrarily detained them and beat them up.
Journalists' organizations expressed concern over the strictness of the police and security forces, misbehavior with women journalists and obstruction in their work.
But no statement has come from the Home Ministry on this yet.
However, when UN Human Rights expressed concern over the police action against the protesters and demanded the immediate unconditional release of the detained people, the government said that these concerns were baseless and unjustified. This is unnecessary interference in the internal affairs of the country.
Many people say that in July, there was a demonstration of youth under the leadership of Cockroach Party regarding the improvement in the education system, then PM Narendra Modi came on Instagram and talked to the youth, but what happened this time that he did not talk to the youth even after a huge confrontation between the police and the agitators.
The question is whether this is a well-thought-out strategy of the government or whether it is feeling that its upper hand is weak this time.
Many analysts believe that Narendra Modi is facing the biggest challenge in his active political career.
Senior journalist Shekhar Gupta wrote in his column this week that the Modi-BJP story still remains the most remarkable, although it is not as strong as before. The shock that Modi is facing as he enters his 26th year in public office is being made more acute by various blows.
Modi's 25-year journey is shadowed by troubles and chances of a big storm are rising.
DK Singh, political editor of The Print, considers the SIR issue as a big problem for the government.
He told BBC News Hindi, "We have seen that earlier also questions were being raised against the policies of BJP but now the young generation is questioning the PM in a direct and aggressive manner. Many people of this young generation used to be supporters of PM Modi earlier. But his coming out on the streets with his sharp attitude is quite shocking.
DK Singh says, "Narendra Modi government does not want to appear weak. But the youth have created such a situation in front of them that a strange situation has arisen. That's why the government is not saying anything despite strict action against the youth agitators.
Supporters of the government are seeing foreign hands in this movement and the July movement. Vishwa Hindu Parishad's national spokesperson Pravesh Chaudhary spoke to BBC News Hindi regarding the movement.
He said, “The government had feedback before the Cockroach Janata Party movement in July. It was getting support from external elements. But its analysis took some time. Then when the analysis was done, shocking facts started emerging. It was seen that during the movement, the number of daily wage laborers decreased in the districts adjoining Bihar, UP and Delhi. Then it was found that money was suddenly coming into his account."
"During the movement, it was also checked who was giving money to companies like Swiggy and Zomato that were delivering food at the protest site. It was found out that they were getting funding from the Middle East. This showed that this movement was being supported by external forces.
Pravesh Choudhary says that America and European countries have been organizing such movements in developing countries for years by funding them. They say that this has happened recently in Bangladesh and Nepal. A similar pattern has started appearing in India also.
Pravesh says, “The people of the country have understood who is behind these movements. When Abhijeet Deepke and his associates who were coming to Delhi were being detained, they were challenging the police. At that time the people sitting there were criticizing Deepke and his colleagues. This shows what is the reaction of the people of the country towards such people.
Pravesh Chaudhary says, “The government has come to know who is funding such agitators. It is clear that they are getting funding from abroad so that social instability can be created in India. The government has started cracking down on this type of funding. By tightening FCRA, funding has been stopped to many such organizations which are instigating the youth to create instability in the country.
Pravesh Choudhary says that this time the agitators have not come forward for the issues but under someone's influence. Therefore, the government does not think that such elements should be strictly controlled.
Vibhuti Narayan Rai has been the Director General of Police of Uttar Pradesh. He has long experience of the stance of police and government against such movements.
He also understands the logic behind youth participation in political movements and the government's response.
On the question of the government not giving any reaction on the strictness of the police and paramilitary forces during the ongoing agitation demanding the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, he said, "The Cockroach Janata Party which agitated on the question of paper leak was not a political party. The youth who participated in this movement were not supporters of any political party. He took part in this movement because of a special kind of anger and frustration. But this time the movement is being led by Rahul Gandhi, hence the Modi government is taking it as a political challenge. Therefore, she is not speaking strictly against the movement.
''The government believes that if it gives any reaction, it will be considered its defeat. Whereas during the July Movement he spoke to the youth on Instagram. At that time the government wanted to show that it stood with Gen Z, so they chose Instagram to communicate.
Vibhuti Narayan Rai says that the whole world is watching the strictness of the government. It has been criticized in the international media. The human rights record in India has not been very good. Such matters are not doing India any good as a democracy. All political parties use police and paramilitary forces but this time the ruthlessness with which the Narendra Modi government did it was unprecedented.
Vibhuti Narayan Rai says, "The government is badly surrounded in the SIR case. And it is also true that BJP has got electoral benefit from it. That's why perhaps she is avoiding saying anything on the question of strictness on the movement in this matter. He is aware of the anger of the people because the names of a large number of people have been removed from the voter list. People in India do not want to lose the power to vote at any cost.
